Hendrix: A Pittsburgh Titans Novel

“You sure about this place?” Bain asks as we step inside Jerry’s Bar. The music is loud, and it’s filled with bikers, biker chicks, grizzled old men who look like they might have seen a war or two, and a handful of nefarious-looking individuals.

“Totally sure,” I assure him, immediately feeling comfortable because wouldn’t you know it, “Edge of Seventeen” is blaring on the jukebox.

Camden pushes past both of us and heads straight for the bar. It’s not crowded tonight, at least not the way it was three nights ago for the toy drive. My gaze immediately lands on Stevie, pouring a draft beer from a tap while talking animatedly to a guy sitting opposite her. He’s huge, arm muscles rippling under a black T-shirt with a leather biker vest. She slides the beer his way, and he hands her money.

Stevie doesn’t put it in the register right away, but instead rests her forearms on the bar and leans closer to the man as they talk.

I take a moment to note she’s dressed pretty much the same way she was the night of the charity drive. As she leans on the bar, my eyes narrow in not on her cleavage but on the biker’s gaze that drops there.

I hate the burning in my gut, but I know it comes with her job. The only thing that calms me a little is that the biker pushes some more money her way, which Stevie puts in a tip jar, then offers her fist to his, which he bumps in a friendly manner.

“Come on,” I say to Bain, who hasn’t moved from my side. We head toward Camden sitting at the end of the bar with one empty stool beside him.

I plop down on it, and Bain moves to the other side of Camden where there’s room to stand on the corner. Another bartender approaches us, a pretty blond I remember from the other night.

She recognizes me, and while Bain and Camden weren’t here that night, she must be a hockey fan because I can tell she recognizes them too.

“Great game tonight,” she chirps as she sets down three coasters before us. “First round is on me.”

Camden pulls out his wallet. “Actually… I’ll buy everyone in here a round.”

We give our orders, Camden hands over a credit card, and before the bartender can walk away, I say, “Do you mind nudging your boss and sending her down this way?”

“Sure thing,” she replies with a smile.

I watch as she walks over to Stevie who’s at a sink washing mugs. She bumps her with her hip and says something, and Stevie’s head whips my way, eyes round with surprise.

She smiles, lifts a soapy finger to indicate she needs a minute, and I wink back at her.

I didn’t know how she’d take me showing up. She wouldn’t go out with me tonight, which included a ticket to the game and a late dinner, as she didn’t want to take two nights off in a row. We’ve got plans to go out tomorrow, my last availability for several days as we’ve got back-to-back games in Nashville.

“Is that her?” Bain asks from the other side of Camden.

“Yeah,” I reply without taking my eyes off Stevie. I’d told Camden and Bain straight up that I was coming here tonight after the game (rather than Mario’s) to see a girl. I gave them the quick lowdown on how we met—they’d already heard through the grapevine Tracy and I had broken up—and I invited them along as I didn’t want to seem like the creeper dude just sitting here drinking beers and staring at the girl who’s been occupying my thoughts the last few days.

It’s safe to say that our first date went great.

Better than great. I’d actually go out on a limb and say it was my best first date ever, even right up to the moment Stevie’s dad interrupted my attempt at a good-night kiss. I thought it was hilarious, and the way Stevie grinned while her dad scowled told me all I needed to know about her.

She’s going to be a lot of fun to hang with, and that’s why I’m here tonight. Even if she’s working and I might only get a smile or two, a word here and there… it’s a good way to spend the evening.

“She’s hot,” Camden observes. “In a very non-Tracy-like way.”

My head twists to stare at him. “What does that mean?”

“It means that if that were Tracy, she’d be doing something to get your attention. She’d have come over to you, batted her eyelashes, stuck her tits in your face or something. Your girl is washing dirty mugs and hasn’t glanced back at you. She’s confident and self-assured, and that’s what makes her hot in a non-Tracy-like way.”

I shake my head, not in disagreement but awe. “That’s actually on point.”

Our beers make it to us, along with several patrons coming up to Camden to thank him for the round. We’re recognized, which is expected, and people start buying us beers. When that happens, the bartender sets a wooden coin in front of us to collect the brew when we’re ready so we don’t have a line of poured drafts going warm.

It feels like forever, but it can’t be more than ten minutes before Stevie heads our way, and yeah… I’ve pretty much been staring at her the entire time.

Her eyes flit to Bain and Camden before returning to me and staying there. Stevie leans an arm on the bar and angles her body to face the three of us. “This is a pleasant surprise. Or rather stalkerish. Not sure which.”

Bain laughs, and that draws Stevie’s attention. She reaches out her hand. “Stevie.”

“Bain,” he says as they shake.

With her other hand, she points to the flat-screen TV behind the bar. “I know. Great game tonight.” She then extends her hand to Camden. “Both of you. Congrats.”

We beat the Chicago Bobcats tonight 1–0 in a tough defensive battle, and I personally had an excellent game. I wait for praise from Stevie, but instead, she motions to the three of us and asks, “Is this like a defensemen type thing? Do y’all hang out by virtue of your positions?”

I shake my head and throw my thumb at my teammates. “Nah. I actually don’t like them very much. I just asked them to come along as I knew they’d leave me alone while I flirted with you.”

Camden and Bain chuckle as Stevie rolls her eyes. I think she might walk away to make it hard for me, but she turns fully my way and leans across the bar. “Give me about twenty minutes and I can take a break. You and I can take on your friends in a game of pool. If they’re foolish enough, we can bet money.”

“I like it,” I say with a conspiratorial grin, not even remotely ashamed that I like to watch Stevie bend over to make her shot. I’m still surprised I beat her when we played the other night because her curvy little body was fucking distracting as hell.

“You played a great game, too,” she adds on softly. “You were very distracting to me.”

Stevie turns and moves down the bar, checking on drink refills along the way. I stare after her until Bain punches me in the arm. “Dude… you’ve got it bad.”

“I like her,” Camden says as he clamps a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “And for the record, I despised Super Lint.”

“Yes, I know,” I drawl, well aware of how everyone on the team felt about my former girlfriend.

“Super Lint?” Bain asks.

“Tracy was way too clingy,” Camden explains. “And she was never happy. Always bitching about something.”

“Not always,” I say, feeling a weird need to defend Tracy. Or rather, defend my lack of common sense in being with someone like that.

“Always,” Camden says with a pointed look. “In fact—”

A loud crash at the far end of the bar makes us whip that way, only to see two men fighting. Well, more like shoving back and forth with a whole lot of profanity.

Two bikers covered in leather, tats, and scars, their bodies large enough to send other patrons scurrying as they go at each other. One of them is bald and throws a punch that lands square on the other dude’s jaw. But the other guy, who’s got long hair in a single braid down his back, is built like a Mack Truck and barely gets rocked. His expression looks almost amused as he strokes his jaw before his eyes go ice cold, promising retribution.

And then I’m horrified to see Stevie coming up over the top of the bar, baseball bat in hand as she jumps to the ground. Her face is livid as she storms toward the two combatants, and I’m shocked even more to see people clear a path for her to get to them.

“Son of a bitch,” I mutter as I bolt that way, intent on intercepting her before she gets hurt.

I’m too late, though. She steps right into the fray, elbowing one of the guys hard in the ribs and bending him over with a grunt of pain. She holds the bat with her hands at both ends and shoves it into the other guy’s chest, driving him backward.

“What the fuck, Louis?” she yells at the bald man, who immediately holds up his hands in surrender. “I told you if you pulled this shit, I was going to crack your head open.”

The man looks somewhat chastened, which is weird considering he looks like he’s done some seriously hard time in prison for hurting people, but I’m not taking any chances. I gently grasp Stevie’s arm and maneuver her behind me, stepping back so I can put distance between us and the guys who were fighting. Bain and Camden appear and make a united wall with me.

“You the protection brigade?” the bald man named Louis asks as he eyeballs the three of us with a hard set to his jaw.

“Yeah… that’s us,” I reply, knowing Bain, Camden, and I could easily take this dude.

“Then I owe you a beer,” Louis says with a grin. “Because I was about ten seconds away from Stevie using that bat on me.”

“I would’ve kneed you in the nuts,” Stevie says as she pushes between me and Camden to come toe to toe with Louis again. “Get out of here. You’re cut off for the night.”

I watch in part confusion, part fascination as the man heads toward the door without further argument. She then rounds on the guy with the braid. “I should throw you out, too, Jimmy.”

“He started it,” the man growls, and I step in closer to Stevie.

“So he did,” Stevie says with a sigh. “I’ll buy you a beer.”

“Fair enough,” Jimmy says and heads back to his stool at the bar as if nothing happened.

“Dude,” Bain says, leaning in close and speaking in a low voice, “your girl is a badass, and I’m slightly terrified of her.”

“I’m turned on,” Camden says with obvious awe.

I’d laugh if I wasn’t still trying to process what I just saw. Stevie jumped into the middle of a brawl without a single care in the world.

She moves toward the bar, but I reach out and snag her arm. “What the hell was that?” I ask.

She doesn’t seem to take offense but tips her head at me in curiosity.

“You could have been seriously hurt,” I point out.

Her smile is brilliant, followed by a light pat on my cheek with her palm. “It’s cute that you think I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“But—”

“No buts,” she says, moving her hand to my chest where she presses over my heart, which I realize is galloping. “Now, go get a pool table set up. I’m going to buy Jimmy a beer, grab myself one, and we’ll play a few games, okay?”

I can only nod mutely because I’m starting to understand Stevie is far more intriguing than I’d originally thought, and I’d already thought she was fucking cool as shit. Granted, I’m not sure I like her needing to break up bar fights and I know I’ll have a million questions later, but for now, I’ll just have to trust that she knows what she’s doing.

♦

Stevie sinks the eight ball, and Bain tosses his cue onto the table. “That’s it. I’m drunk and tired of getting my ass kicked. I’m out of here.”

“Me too,” Camden agrees, picking up Bain’s cue and returning it to the wall rack along with his.

I glance at my watch and note it’s almost two a.m. The bar is completely cleared out, except for us and one old man sitting by himself, nursing the last dregs of a draft beer. The other bartender is at the register, counting money and making notations on a notepad before putting everything in a bank bag.

Stevie unscrews her cue stick, and I start to panic. I’m not ready for the evening to be over, and I haven’t had any time to really talk to her alone. For the past few hours, all four of us have been drinking beers and playing pool. Every once in a while, Stevie would dash around and help pick up empty mugs and beer bottles for the other bartender, but she didn’t serve any more drinks.

“It’s against the law to drink and serve alcohol,” she explained. “But it’s slowing down, and Giada can handle things.”

I loved it because that meant she could hang out with me—and my buddies—the rest of the night.

But now they’re shrugging on coats, and I’m not ready to leave. That might be the beer talking, but it’s talking too loudly to ignore.

“Let’s play another game,” I say, directly to Stevie.

Her eyes lift to meet mine, then slide over to Bain and Camden. “But your friends are leaving.”

I step in closer to her. “And I’m glad. I haven’t had any alone time with you.”

A dark eyebrow rises, and her lips twitch. “Alone time?”

“You know,” I say, nodding toward the pool table. “For us to have a one-on-one rematch.”

“Is that code for something else?” she asks with an amused smile. Her eyes sparkle, and I wonder how much of that is alcohol glitter.

One more step closer to her, and my hand goes to her hip. “I don’t speak in code. So, if you want honesty, at the very least, I want that kiss your dad screwed me out of the other night.”

“At the very least?” She’s the one who moves in now. “That implies you might want more.”

I bend my head, shrinking the distance between our faces. “I’ll let you in on a little secret… when it comes to you, I’m always going to want more. I’ll take whatever you want to give.”

Whoa, those were some strong words considering I’ve only known the woman for three days, but I evaluate the sincerity within me, and it’s not the beer talking.

And I’m not sure I’m talking about sex.

Okay, yes… I’m talking about sex, but if she only has time to give me another game of pool and we end the evening with that kiss, that’s okay too.

No fucking way is this a rebound. When I ended things with Tracy, I wasn’t left with any emptiness that needs filling. There wasn’t a single ache involved in that parting of ways.

Rather, whatever this is with Stevie is fresh and doesn’t have a damn thing to do with whatever happened in my life before meeting her. I have no clue what will come of it, and I don’t have any expectations. I’m not necessarily looking for a relationship, as I didn’t have the best experience committing myself to Tracy. All I know is that Stevie has my attention like it’s never been caught before.

“Tell your friends goodbye,” Stevie says, eyes dancing with deviltry and maybe a little challenge. Still no way to know how much alcohol is playing a part, but I don’t think Stevie needs a single drop of liquid courage to go after what she wants.

“You guys get out of here,” I say, loudly enough for them to hear but without taking my eyes off the woman before me.

They snicker and Bain calls out, “Good to meet you, Stevie.”

“Same to you,” she replies, eyes still locked on mine.

“Great bar,” Camden says. “We’ll be back.”

“Looking forward to it,” Stevie says dismissively, her eyes falling to my mouth.

And there’s no way in hell we’re playing another game of pool. There’s no way in hell I’m waiting another second to kiss her.

I lift my hand from her hip to slide it around the back of her slender neck. I feel her muscles jerk and then loosen under my touch, and she’s already rising onto her tiptoes. I don’t hesitate… don’t care if Bain or Camden have left or are gawking. I touch my mouth to hers where it hovers for just a brief second before fully claiming it.

Stevie sighs into my mouth. Capitulation? Pleasure? Both?

Regardless, the room spins, and everything melts away. The bar, my teammates, the old man sitting with his final beer of the night. All of it gone with nothing else mattering but the heat of Stevie’s mouth, which in turn sends an insane swell of lust rocketing through my body.

A kiss isn’t going to be enough for me.

Will it be enough for her?

My hands dive into her hair, and I press the kiss deeper. She accepts every bit of it, her fingers hooking through the belt loops of my jeans and tugging me closer. If she continues and pulls me all the way into her body, she’s going to feel exactly what this kiss is doing to me.

Stevie turns her face, breaking the kiss. My lips go to her temple as she sucks in a deep breath. I pull back slightly to look at her, and when her eyes meet mine, my knees weaken with the pure, unfiltered heat radiating in her gaze.

“What if I ask you to come home with me?” she whispers.

“Only one question… is your dad going to be there?”

She laughs, light and tinkling. “He’s at his own house tonight. It will be just us… and my fish, Shenanigans.”

“You have a fish named Shenanigans?”

“Yeah… I’ll introduce you. If you come home with me.”

My answer is a soft kiss. “Let’s get this place cleaned up, then, so we can get out of here.”